1.1 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for providing information on commodities (i.e., commodity information) to a user by using a computer. The present invention also relates to a method and an apparatus for utilizing commodity information provided to a purchaser by using a computer.
1.2 Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when a purchaser wishes to buy a commodity, the purchaser obtains information on the commodity from newspaper, magazines, television commercials, or the like. In addition, due to the recent development in telecommunications technologies such as the Internet technologies, it has become possible to obtain commodity information from homepages on the Internet. Generally, the commodity information is provided to consumers in various manners. For example, information items on individual commodities may be separately provided to a purchaser, or information on comparisons between a plurality of commodities may be provided to a purchaser.
For example, information items on individual commodities are separately provided to a purchaser with advertising leaflets, television commercials, advertisement banners indicated on homepages, and the like. Information items on individual commodities can also be separately provided to a purchaser by information delivery services, which collect evaluations of the individual commodities from consumers through the Internet, and deliver information on the collected evaluations to the consumers. Commodity rating services provided on commodity transaction sites on the Internet are examples of the information delivery services. Since the commodity information provided as above is produced based on the information collected from the consumers, purchasers can obtain impartial information on evaluations of commodities. In addition, some services collect information on commodities which have been sold, and deliver to purchasers information on recommendation of a commodity which have been sold most. K. Fujimoto et al. (“DSIU Systems: Decision Support for Internet Users,” Journal of Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 61–64, January 2000) proposes, as a new attempt to provide commodity information, an arrangement for collecting information on commodities through a network and making an inference from the collected information.
On the other hand, information on comparisons between a plurality of commodities are provided to consumers with magazine articles, television programs, and the like. That is, the consumers can obtain from the magazine articles and the television programs information on the comparison between the specific commodity and other commodities, for example, superiority or inferiority of the specific commodity to other commodities. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication, No. 2000-148848 discloses commodity comparison and sales supporting system. The system processes commodity information in such a manner that comparisons between commodities become easy. However, when the conventional methods of providing commodity information are used, it is difficult for consumers to obtain information on relative evaluations of the commodities, and it is particularly difficult when the relative evaluations of the commodities are requested to be made based on at least one specific evaluation criterion.
When information items on individual commodities are separately provided, the purchasers have to make sorting, analysis, and comparison of the collected information by themselves. Generally, the amount of commodity information provided through the Internet is great. Therefore, it is not easy to appropriately collect the commodity information, and make appropriate analysis and comparison of the collected commodity information. In addition, usually, information provided by an advertisement of a commodity emphasizes only the merits of the commodity, and does not mention the demerits of the commodity. Further, the information items on the individual commodities are displayed in various manners. Thus, it is very difficult to appropriately derive the relative evaluations of the commodities from the information items on the individual commodities which are provided separately.
In addition, although the inference from the collected information can be made for evaluating features of commodities as proposed in the K. Fujimoto reference, the inference cannot be made based on a specific evaluation criterion. For example, the technique proposed in the K. Fujimoto reference cannot answer the question what is a commodity useful for a specific purpose.
Further, even in the case where information on comparisons between a plurality of commodities is provided, the information is produced by predetermined experts and the like. Therefore, only limited types of information can be provided, and the time and cost necessary for the production of the information are great. Often, a price for the information is charged to each purchaser who receives the information. In addition, although the impartial, overall evaluations of commodities can be obtained when the aforementioned commodity rating services are used, purchasers are not informed of what evaluation criterion is used for the evaluation. Generally, each purchaser requires relative evaluations made based on an evaluation criterion which the purchaser prefers. However, in this case, such a requirement is not satisfied. Even in the system disclosed in JPP. No. 2000-148848, relative evaluations of commodities are not obtained by the processing of commodity information.